The life actions and decision-making
processes of Iban Dayaks depend on divination, augury and omens. They
have several methods to receive omens where omens can be obtained by
deliberate seeking or chance encounters. The first method is via dream
to receive charms, amulets (pengaroh, empelias, engkerabun) or medicine
(obat) and curse (sumpah) from any gods, people of Panggau Libau and
Gelong and any spirits or ghosts. The second method is via animal omens
(burong laba) which have long-lasting effects such as from deer barking
which is quite random in nature. The third method is via bird omens
(burong bisa) which have short term effects that are commonly limited
to a certain farming year or a certain activity at hands. The fourth
method is via pig liver divination after festival celebration[38] At
the end of critical festivals, the divination of the pig liver will be
interpreted to forecast the outcome of the future or the luck of the
individual who holds the festival.[39] The fifth but not the least
method is via nampok or betapa (self-imposed isolation) to receive
amulet, curse, medicine or healing.

The Dayak people represent a group of
Proto-Malayans inhabiting the inner part of Borneo (the largest
Indonesian island). They are related to the Batak of northern Sumatra,
Filipino Ifugao, and various tribes from Timor, Celebes, Sumatra and
Moluccas. The Dayaks experienced many external influences, especially
practice. Dayaks are highly conservative, and each village is organized
in clans composed of various families who accept the authority of a
single chief.

Dayaks worship a superhuman power; "Semangat," that rules the lives of
humans, animals and plants. This invisible life force is omnipresent:
in all human body parts, shadows, names, the water in which a human or
animal bathed, traces imprinted in mud... Semangat can enter any body.
It's a "soul" that can be destroyed by more powerful entities. The
Dayak beleive; each persons soul is inherited from a forebearer. Dayak
wooden carvings host the souls of the dead. All Dayak souls submit to
two divine powers: the sky; imaged as a hornbill bird, with land and
water,
symbolized by a snake.

The Dayak practice "Kaharingan," which is a form of animism. The name
was coined
by Tjilik Riwut in 1944 during his tenure as a Dutch colonial Resident
in Sampit, Dutch East Indies. In 1945, during the Japanese Occupation,
the Japanese referred to Kaharingan as being the religion of the Dayak
people. During the New Order in the Suharto regime in 1980, Kaharingan
is registered as a form of Hinduism in Indonesia, while the Indonesian
state only recognises 6 forms of religion; Islam, Protestantism, Roman
Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism respectively. The
integration of Kaharingan with Hinduism is not due to the similarities
in the theological system, but due to the fact that Kaharingan is the
oldest belief in Kalimantan, Borneo. Unlike the development in
Indonesian Kalimantan, the Kaharingan is not recognised as a religion
both in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei, thus the traditional Dayak belief
system is known as a form of folk animism or pagan belief on the other
side of the Indonesian border on Borneo Island.

The practice of Kaharingan differs from group to group, but shamans,
specialists in ecstatic flight to other spheres, are central to Dayak
religion, and serve to bring together the various realms of Heaven
(Upper-world) and earth, and even Under-world, for example healing the
sick by retrieving their souls which are journeying on their way to the
Upper-world land of the dead, accompanying and protecting the soul of a
dead person on the way to their proper place in the Upper-world,
presiding over annual renewal and agricultural regeneration festivals,
etc. Death rituals are most elaborate when a noble (kamang) dies. On
particular religious occasions, the spirit is believed to descend to
partake in celebration, a mark of honour and respect to past ancestors
and blessings for a prosperous future.

The Dayak are feared for their ancient tradition of headhunting
practices (the ritual is also known as Ngayau by the Dayaks). Among the
Iban Dayaks, the origin of headhunting was believed to be meeting one
of the mourning rules given by a spirit. Subsequently, the headhunting
began to surface again in the mid-1940s, when the Allied Powers
encouraged the practice against the Japanese Occupation of Borneo. It
also slightly surged in the late 1960s when the Indonesian government
encouraged Dayaks to purge Chinese from interior Kalimantan who were
suspected of supporting communism in mainland China and also in the
late 1990s when the Dayak started to attack Madurese emigrants in an
explosion of ethnic violence.